ACT 1
The curtain opens on a darkened office. One lamp casts light onto the face of the White Author, who is sitting at a desk hunched over a laptop looking at Twitter. Whispers start. At first, the words are too faint to make out, but gradually occasional whispers become audible, making it clear that the White Author is reading comments about their recently published book. The word “racist” is heard with greater and greater frequency. The White Author straightens and starts typing frantically.
WHITE AUTHOR: What! How dare you say my book is racist! I’m not racist! You’re racist!
The White Author raises their hand, about to strike the “Enter” key angrily. Behind them, Ghost 1, a semi-transparent white man wearing a top hat and coat, materializes.
GHOST 1: Wait!
WHITE AUTHOR: (turning and lowering hand) Who are you?
GHOST 1: The Ghost of Racism Past.
WHITE AUTHOR: (raising a skeptical eyebrow) Are you here to tell me I’m not allowed to write characters of color?
GHOST 1: No. I’m from 1900. We did whatever the hell we wanted. Annex Hawaii, annex the Philippines… it’s all part of our racial destiny. It’s the White Man’s Burden to civilize the world. You know how it goes.
WHITE AUTHOR: (shifting uncomfortably) But I don’t want to be racist.
GHOST 1: That’s simple. Don’t do racist things.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I didn’t, I just wrote a book.
GHOST 1: Was it a racist book?
WHITE AUTHOR: No! Of course not!
GHOST 1: How do you know? Did you find a list of stereotypes and deliberately avoid them?
WHITE AUTHOR: Well, no.
GHOST 1: Did you search for advice on how to do a good job of writing an identity you don’t share?
WHITE AUTHOR: No.
GHOST 1: Did you pay someone who knows more about racism than you do to read your manuscript and flag problematic parts?
WHITE AUTHOR: No.
GHOST 1: Did you imagine people of color reading your book and try to determine how it would specifically impact them?
WHITE AUTHOR: No.
GHOST 1: Did you take any deliberate action to keep racism from messing up your book?
WHITE AUTHOR: (defensively) I didn’t need to. I’m not racist! Racists are those white supremacists.
GHOST 1: Like L. Frank Baum?
WHITE AUTHOR: L. Frank Baum? Of course not! The Wizard of Oz books were my favorite series as a child.
GHOST 1: You didn’t notice anything problematic about them?
WHITE AUTHOR: No.
GHOST 1: (handing the White Author a book) Rinkitink in Oz, Book 10 of the Oz series, last chapter. Glinda is breaking a spell that turned a lost prince into a goat.
The White Author turns to the end of the book to read.
MALE VOICE: (offstage) “First she transformed Bilbil the goat into a lamb, and this was done quite easily. Next, she transformed the lamb into an ostrich, giving it two legs and feet instead of four. Then she tried to transform the ostrich into the original Prince Bobo, but this incantation was an utter failure. Glinda was not discouraged, however, but by a powerful spell transformed the ostrich into a tottenhot — which is a lower form of a man. Then the tottenhot was transformed into a mifket, which was a great step in advance and, finally, Glinda transformed the mifket into a handsome young man -”
WHITE AUTHOR: What’s wrong with that?
GHOST 1: Hierarchy of semi-human creatures?
WHITE AUTHOR: But he just made up some more species, that’s not racist. He made up gnomes and munchkins and—
GHOST 1: “Hottentot” was a derogatory term for the Khoikhoi people in southern Africa. The book’s illustrations make the connection explicit.
WHITE AUTHOR: Oh.
GHOST 1: Even without knowing that, if your alarm bells didn’t go off when you first read it, you definitely don’t know enough about racist stereotypes to avoid writing them yourself. Even if you did catch this one, there are a lot of racist stereotypes out there. If you haven’t researched a list and consciously taken steps to avoid them, you’re probably writing them.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I’m a smart person, a good writer. I’m not affected by stereotypes.
GHOST 1: Would you say you’re a better writer than Ralph Waldo Emerson?
WHITE AUTHOR: Emerson? But he wasn’t racist.
Ghost 1 holds out a thin book.
WHITE AUTHOR: Oh God… don’t tell me…
GHOST 1: Racism makes brilliant people write ignorant things. What makes you think you’re exempt?
MALE VOICE: (offstage) “Men hear gladly of the power of blood or race. Everybody likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, nor to laws and traditions, nor to fortune; but to superior brain… It is race, is it not? that puts the hundred millions of India under the dominion of a remote island in the north of Europe…. Race is a controlling influence in the Jew, who, for two millenniums, under every climate, has preserved the same character and employments.”
GHOST 1: From English Traits, written in 1909, Chapter IV: Race. Emerson was a talented and influential writer and thinker. He used his fame and rhetorical skill to become one of the foremost conduits for gathering racist science from Europe and the United States and channeling it into the popular consciousness. Is that what you want to do?
WHITE AUTHOR: But—but that sort of racism was just him being a product of his time!
GHOST 1: And that would make it okay? Besides, he doesn’t have an excuse for not knowing better. Other abolitionists at the time told him he was being racist. He refused to listen. And he wasn’t talking into thin air. When Congress debated how much support to give newly freed slaves after the Civil War, what impact do you think had when one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, one who supported abolition even, argued that the “inferior races” might not be evolutionarily fit enough to endure?
MALE VOICE: (offstage) “Races. Nature every little while drops a link. How long before the Indians will be extinct? Then the negro? Then we shall say, what a gracious interval of dignity between man and beast!”
GHOST 1: That’s from one of Emerson’s journal entries in the 1850s putting forward the exact same hierarchy of man that shows up in Baum’s children’s books fifty years later. And Emerson’s question wasn’t idle. At least 90% of the indigenous people of the continent had already been killed when he wrote that. When we look at the modern era, people today are killed, denied jobs, denied housing, given inadequate medical care, and separated from their children because of racism and racist stereotyping. When you put more racist stereotypes out into the world, you are contributing to that. Do you really want your best defense to be “But my books aren’t as popular as Emerson’s or Baum’s, so I didn’t do that much damage?”
WHITE AUTHOR: (covering their ears) Stop! That’s enough!
GHOST 1: Why yes, that’s what people of color have been saying for centuries. Could you stop doing and writing racist stuff.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I’m not!
GHOST 1: Racism is a powerful enough force to creep in and corrupt the work of many of the most prominent historical authors. What makes you think you escaped it?
WHITE AUTHOR: They’re from the past. Things are better now. We’re not racist anymore. I’m not racist!
Ghost 1 shakes his head sadly and slowly fades into nothingness.
Enter Ghost 2. Ghost 2 is a white woman in her mid-thirties with braided hair who is wearing glasses, a sweater, and slacks.
WHITE AUTHOR: Who are you?
GHOST 2: I’m the Ghost of Racism Present.
WHITE AUTHOR: Shouldn’t you be a hillbilly?
GHOST 2: (sighing) I get that a lot. Tell me, what did you learn in school about racism?
WHITE AUTHOR: (shifting uncomfortably) Well, racism was a problem in the South—slavery… Jim Crow… that kind of thing. Then Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement fixed it. So we’re all equal now.
GHOST 2: (nodding) That’s what I was taught, too… racism was a southern thing. We’re innocent. I didn’t learn otherwise until I got to college.
WHITE AUTHOR: But it’s true, isn’t it? Northerners fought the Civil War and freed the slaves. We’re the good guys, not the racist ones. Aren’t we?
GHOST 2: Have you ever heard of Malcolm X?
WHITE AUTHOR: Wasn’t he the violent one?
GHOST 2: (facepalm) Northern whites don’t learn much about Malcolm X because he challenged northern racism. Historically, it has been just as virulent as southern racism but has manifested differently. If you don’t even know about Malcolm X, you have to read up. It’s not just necessary for being an author; it’s necessary for life.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I’m so busy! Can’t I just focus on being a good writer? I don’t have time to learn about all this other stuff!
GHOST 2 sighs and steers the White Author over to a couch. They sit.
GHOST 2: Think of it this way. Imagine that authors are like a group of students who want to become OB/GYN’s.
GHOST 2 waves her hand, and a ghostly college classroom appears in front of the couch. A few students are already seated.
GHOST 2: Many students arrive in class having attended births since they were kids. They still have some theory to learn, they might have misconceptions, but they’ve been learning about it for decades.
The door to the classroom opens, and the White Student walks in.
WHITE STUDENT: Hey everybody! When do we get to meet the storks?
WHITE AUTHOR: (taken aback) I don’t believe in storks!
GHOST 2: But when it comes to racism, most of us white authors really are at the stork level of ignorance. We’re taught almost none of the actual history of racism, and a great deal of what we have learned is wrong. Now, by itself, ignorance can be fixed, but look at what happens when someone tries.
In the classroom, the other students exchange appalled glances.
STUDENT 1: There… are no storks.
WHITE STUDENT: (turning a piece of paper in their hands) The aerie must be on the map here somewhere.
STUDENT 1: (louder) Babies don’t come from storks.
WHITE STUDENT: (condescendingly, looking up) Of course they do.
STUDENT 1: I’m telling you, I’ve been to actual births. Babies come out of the person giving birth.
WHITE STUDENT: (laughing) The stork must have slipped in while your back was turned.
STUDENT 1: No, I—
WHITE STUDENT: Are you sure you were at a real birth?
STUDENT 1: I was definitely at a real birth.
WHITE STUDENT: (huffily) Well, you don’t have to be all angry about it. What’s your problem?
STUDENT 1: I’m not angry. I’m just trying to explain—
WHITE STUDENT: What is it with you people, anyway? I was just trying to help you understand how things work. It’s like every time I try, you people always take it so personally.
STUDENT 1: I’m taking it personally?
WHITE STUDENT: (starting to cry) Why are you being so mean to me?
STUDENT 1: You can’t be a good OB/GYN if you’re sitting around waiting for the stork. We’re here to learn to be OB/GYN’s.
STUDENT 2: (whispering to Student 1) Once the tears come out, it’s a lost cause.
WHITE STUDENT: You should apologize to me! You hurt my feelings!
STUDENT 1: I told you that you were ignorant because if no one tells you, you can’t fix it!
WHITE STUDENT: (wiping their eyes) I’m filing a complaint! You’re making me feel unsafe in class. You called me ignorant!
STUDENT 2: (whispering to Student 1) This is why I don’t try anymore. It’s not worth it. You know the professor will back her up.
STUDENT 1: (whispering back) I have to try. One of my cousins died in childbirth because when she went into emergency labor, she got a stork-believer attending her. That’s why I wanted to become an OB/GYN in the first place.
STUDENT 2: Oh God, that’s awful! Did anyone do anything?
STUDENT 1: No. But the OB/GYN got an award for the textbook she wrote a few years later. A bunch of us tried to say something, but a lot of influential people believe in storks.
Student 2 hugs Student 1 as the classroom fades from view.
WHITE AUTHOR: I’m not ignorant!
GHOST 2: When did you first become aware that racism is still a problem?
WHITE AUTHOR: Um… the 2016 election?
GHOST 2: That’s the case for a lot of white people. And many still don’t think racism exists. Unless you had a very unusual upbringing for a white person, you have to give yourself a crash course in Remedial Racism as an adult. If you’ve only been vaguely aware that something even exists for a few years, of course you’re not going to be an expert in it yet. Especially when compared to people who started learning about it when they were three years old. You’ve got to study up. Ignorance is fixable, but first you have to accept that you don’t know what you’re doing.
WHITE AUTHOR: Well in that case, I’m just never going to include people of color in my books again!
Ghost 2 shakes her head and fades from view. Ghost 3 appears. Ghost 3 looks exactly the same as Ghost 2.
WHITE AUTHOR: I thought you were supposed to be the Ghost of Racism Future?
GHOST 3: I am.
WHITE AUTHOR: But why do you look the same as the Ghost of Racism Present?
GHOST 3: Because you didn’t listen, so nothing changed.
WHITE AUTHOR: Something changed. I’m not even going to try to write diverse characters anymore.
GHOST 3: You can’t escape racism by writing only white characters. Making it normal to have all white spaces is a major goal of racism. Furthermore, racism shapes basically everything else that might show up in your story: wealth, violence, politics, gender relations, housing patterns, health, crime… you name it. If you’re writing about the ennui of the suburbs, you can’t fully understand it unless you know at least a little about how redlining and other racist policies created the suburbs and the ghetto as two sides of the same coin. If you’re writing about sexual assault among white people, you need to understand how the stereotype of black men as the main threat to white women’s purity protects white men who prey on their acquaintances. If you’re writing yet another fantasy book in which evil is an external invading force that gets fended off in a climactic battle, you need to understand how this is related to bombing black people out of white neighborhoods and fending off hordes of “invading” immigrants. Racism is omnipresent in shaping American stories, even ones that ostensibly aren’t about race. Not having an awareness of it hollows out your writing at best and actively perpetuates racism at worst.
WHITE AUTHOR: So I can’t win? Is that what you’re telling me?
GHOST 3: No, you win all the time. For starters, take the fact that you can write books with only characters who look like you and face no penalty. Significant numbers of authors can’t. You can do so, and your books won’t get relegated to the “ethnic” section of the bookstore, you won’t be told your books “won’t sell,” and you can be confident that editors and publishers will understand the cultural background you’re writing from. Not only are books you write that have characters who look like you more likely to be published, the books you write that have characters who don’t look like you are still more likely to be published than books by people of color writing about their own experience. This continues to be true even if you write ignorant and racist things. The fundamental problem is that you benefit from racial bias in the publishing industry regardless of what you write.
WHITE AUTHOR: It’s not racism that prevents people from getting published; it’s just about talent.
GHOST 3: Talent at what? The fact that racist writing routinely makes it all the way through to publication without being fixed is a sign of a massive systemic failure to recognize literary skill. Racist writing is bad writing. It is a failure of craft for an author to let their own ignorance lead them to use tired (not to mention harmful) clichés that jolt knowledgeable readers out of the story. Being surrounded by people who also lack the skills necessary to recognize stork level ignorance doesn’t make it less bad writing.
WHITE AUTHOR: But—but we get published more because we write better books!
GHOST 3: Who gets to define “better?” Appreciating any book requires some background knowledge of the context it’s coming from. Take The Great Gatsby, for example. In order to get students to appreciate that book, teachers have to spend significant time building background knowledge of the American Dream, the Roaring 20’s, etc. When students don’t connect with the book, we blame their lack of historical and literary context, not F. Scott Fitzgerald’s talent. In contrast, white authors and editors who fail to resonate with a book written by a person of color are quick to write the author off as untalented instead of considering that their own lack of background knowledge may be stopping them from appreciating it. This isn’t to say that books written by people of color don’t vary in quality, but rather that evaluating quality is extraordinarily difficult if the reader isn’t knowledgeable about the context it’s coming from.
WHITE AUTHOR: Well, it’s fine that different readers like different books, but that doesn’t mean some books aren’t better.
GHOST 3: For any given writing purpose, some books do achieve their goals more skillfully than others, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the systematic exclusion of a whole range of themes and stories that readers would value. They are less likely to make it past publishing gatekeepers because there’s a shortage of people who have the skills to even recognize what the book is trying to accomplish, much less to shepherd it into its best form. There are plenty of readers who want more variety in storytelling, and there are even more who would appreciate a broader range of stories of they had more routine exposure to them. Not just readers of color, but also white readers benefit from a broader perspective. However, the stories that do get through are disproportionately white people’s stories. The books that are taught in school as models of literature, the cultural background of most media gatekeepers, the history we learn about, all of it comes together to make white people’s stories “normal” and everyone else’s “strange.” Merely writing from a white perspective for editors and publishers who are overwhelmingly white means you receive an unearned leg up from racism.
WHITE AUTHOR: But that’s not my fault!
GHOST 3: It doesn’t feel very good to realize you’re benefiting from a racist system, does it? Think how much worse it must feel to be screwed over by one.
WHITE AUTHOR: So what am I supposed to do? I can’t write books with characters of color, I can’t write books without them. Am I not supposed to write at all just because I’m white?
GHOST 3: You’re supposed to help do something about systemic racism. Buy authors of color’s books, promote and review them, look for excellence that you might not have been taught to appreciate, make sure opportunities that are being extended to you are extended to authors of color as well, check that authors of color at speaking events are being paid as much as you are, and signal boost the requests that authors of color are already making. Beyond that, learn about racism and educate other white people, practice noticing and responding to microaggressions, and speak up when people of color are being asked to do extra work. You may find you have to complete on a more level playing field, but can you really argue with that?
WHITE AUTHOR: But what do I write?
GHOST 3: There are no individual writing choices you can make that will allow you to pat yourself on the back and say racism has nothing to do with you. You have to put your shoulder to the wheel of changing the industry and know that the struggle is larger than yourself.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I’m only one person.
GHOST 3: And that is an excellent example of why becoming familiar with a rich tradition of diverse stories is so beneficial to you. When you grow up purely on a diet of fiction where one or a few heroes fight off evil in a climactic battle that’s finished within a few months or years, you end up with warped expectations of your role in social change. Look instead, for example, to the stories of the pre-1950’s Civil Rights movement, communities who kept struggling through setback after setback to lay the groundwork for victories beyond their lifetimes. You aren’t supposed to be the hero who saves everyone; you’re supposed to be one of many people doing a little bit.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I still want to write.
GHOST 3: You can. Especially in the era of self-publishing, no one can stop you. Did you mean you want to write without being criticized?
WHITE AUTHOR: Um, yes. That.
GHOST 3: Then do a good job. Readers of color have things to do with their lives. If they’re taking the time to criticize you, it’s because you did a bad job.
WHITE AUTHOR: How do I do a good job?
GHOST 3: First off, acknowledge that you’re not an expert. You will make mistakes. The key is to have systems to catch them. Find editors and sensitivity readers who have the expertise to catch your errors, then pay them and listen to them. Don’t ask someone to do a sensitivity read so you can say you did one, then ignore them. Learn from the corrections. If you find it challenging to take corrections graciously, try reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility to help you with that.
This will be a lot easier and require fewer revisions if you first learn about racism in general and the specific cultures you’re interested in. Some premises are nearly impossible to fix, and you want to know enough to abandon those early. This means doing a lot of reading about racism written by people of color. The more intersectional books you can find, the better. Audre Lourde,[ Need more Asian and Latino authors.] Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, etc. Read fiction, take an online course, follow people of color on Twitter, and educate yourself. Read until you can see whiteness and understand how it is shaping your characters, then keep reading. Use Google before asking people of color the same question they’ve heard a million times. If there is a specific culture you’re interested in, read writing by people from that culture, not writing about that culture by outsiders. Remember that people of color are not a monolith and are not experts in each others’ cultures. Check the Writing With Color[ link] Tumblr for common errors to avoid. Shawl and Ward’s Writing the Other may also be helpful.
If, despite everything, your published book gets criticized for racism, apologize and fix it. Don’t attack the messenger, don’t refuse to own up to your own mistakes until they use the right tone, don’t insist that the real injury is your hurt feelings, and for heaven’s sake don’t try to get the messenger punished! If you’re not sure certain criticism is warranted, talk it over with someone who knows more about racism than you do and who will tell you the truth. Once you have a better grasp of what’s going on, fix it.
It is embarrassing to have to correct your work, and it can be a hassle, but when you’ve tripped and landed yourself in a hole, the first principle is don’t dig. If you’ve written something racist, it’s not like it will magically become invisible if you make a big enough fuss about it. Digging yourself in deeper impresses no one. On the other hand, offering to pay the person who just did ex post facto sensitivity edits for you might. It’s always possible to get better if you allow yourself to.
WHITE AUTHOR: So I really shouldn’t send this tweet?
GHOST 3: No. Definitely not.
WHITE AUTHOR: I’m supposed to swallow my pride and try to learn from the criticism?
GHOST 3: Yes, that would be a good start.
WHITE AUTHOR: But they were very mean about it!
GHOST 3: That doesn’t change the accuracy of their observations. When you argue back, when you hold doing the right thing hostage until they undergo sufficient contortions to soothe your ruffled feathers, you’re saying that your hurt feelings are more important than the actual harms you are doing to those around you. Avoiding racist writing isn’t about not offending people, it’s about not harming people. Constantly dealing with racism takes a physical toll on people of color’s health, not to mention on their happiness and productivity. Widespread beliefs in stereotypes lead to actions that do concrete harm. Your book is part of a never-ending stream of racist stuff that takes a cumulative toll. When you’re actively engaged in doing harm to others, you don’t get to insist that you have to be treated with kid gloves.
WHITE AUTHOR: So I’m supposed to just sit here and take this?
GHOST 3: No. You’re supposed to call up someone who is pretty good at being a white ally and process with them. Just don’t call up someone who will reinforce how awful those mean people of color are and prevent you from learning what you need to learn. It’s normal to feel bad. It’s normal to feel resistant. Just don’t process those emotions online or in front of the people you’ve harmed. And once you’re done processing, do the right thing.
WHITE AUTHOR: But I don’t know anyone who calls themselves a white ally.
GHOST 3: Make some Twitter friends. Find white people who are chiming in on the threads calling you racist and ask if they’ll explain it to you privately. They will often be happy to help you learn. It won’t be a fun conversation, but they have their own stories of realizing they screwed up. If you’re open to what they have to say, they don’t need to get out the big hammer to get through to you.
WHITE AUTHOR: Can you explain it to me?
GHOST 3: I’m a fictional character, but my author totally volunteers. DM or email her. In person, she tends to error on the side of being too gentle, but she can at least get you started.
WHITE AUTHOR: Huh.
The White Author sits frowning at the computer screen as Ghost 3 fades away with imperceptible slowness. As the scene dissolves, we see the White Author hesitantly opening a new message.
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